Chef! = Chief! / Les Films du Raphia ; un film de Jean-Marie Téno. La tête dans les nuages = Head in the clouds / Les Films du Raphia, WDR/ARTE ; écrit, produit et réalisé par Jean-Marie Téno.
Publisher:
California Newsreel,
Copyright Date:
1999
Description:
1 videocassette (96 min.) : sound, color ; 1/2 in.
2nd work originally produced as a short motion picture in 1994. Foreign films (France, Cameroon, Germany).
Summary:
"Teno investigates the ties between unaccountable government and an unproductive economy in La tête dans les nuages. Kleptocracy has become an accepted fact of Cameroonian life described by the proverb: "The goat grazes where it is tied." The government controlled formal sector, like its colonial predecessor, is essentially parasitical. An informal sector has emerged parallel to it which increasingly supplies the daily subsistence needs of the people. Irene, for example, works at the Ministry of Education for an unreliable and inadequate salary; she earns the money she needs to eat from selling beignets in the market. She also belongs to a tontine or "credit union" which offers its members a pool of capital to draw on for business ventures. Such clubs, ubiquitous among African market women, help fill the economic and social vacuum left by the decay of traditional society and the unresponsiveness of the formal banking sector"--From the California Newsreel Web site. "In ... Chef!, Teno locates the roots of Africa's authoritarian regimes in the patriarchal family, reinforced by traditional kingship and the colonial experience. Teno insists that this film was not planned but imposed itself on him during a visit to his ancestral village, Bandjoun, in the Ghomala speaking region of Western Cameroon. He had gone to film dances dedicating a monument to King Kamga Joseph II, the filmmakers' great grand uncle, but the ceremony soon turned into a celebration of one-man rule, in particular Cameroonian President Paul Biya's"--From the California Newsreel Web site.
Series:
The library of African cinema
OCLC:
(OCoLC)42727817
Locations:
OVUX522 -- University of Iowa Libraries (Iowa City)
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.